New Book Review: First Kisses and Second Chances

(This web site will get back on a regular schedule...some day. Last night's power outage, just as the temperature dropped to 8 degrees Fahrenheit at the weather station, meaning 2 or lower here, did me no good.)

Title: First Kisses and Second Chances 

Author: Lily Waters 

Date: 2023 

Publisher: Lily Waters 

Quote: "Rusty...would...leave town as quickly as possible. And if he could avoid Courtney, all the better." 

Rusty was Courtney's childhood sweetheart. But when they reached an age where they could think about marriage, Courtney's father ordered them to separate so Courtney could go to college and prepare for an influential position in the town bank. Rusty, feeling angry and rejected, left town, got into bad company, and served time in prison before hitting his bottom. Now he's sober, law-abiding, and trying to start a business as an electrician. If only he didn't have to go back home for his mother's funeral and find that, among other things, Courtney's paying for the funeral. 

This is a very sweet second-chance romance, with lots of flashbacks to all the fun children have growing up in a small town, but it has a significant flaw. I feel a need to mention this because I've mentioned that I met my husband when I was doing better, financially, than he, and gave him a job. That can happen; it doesn't have to put the kiss of death on a relationship. 

But mutual respect, with no hint of a Lady Bounti-Fool attitude, is crucial. A man worth keeping wants to be the provider and protector. He's not too proud to take help, but he's not happy about needing help and will prefer not to think about his friends' generosity too much until he's paid it back with compound interest. Tolu Ijeoma's books of advice for young women in Washington, notorious for the "Sweetie Pie and Street Monster" story whose purposes include helping women desensitize themselves to the ugly language street terrorists use, include stories about the extremes to which a man's resentment of a more successful woman who "buys" him can go. Some men do marry Lady Bounti-Fool. And give her money to their other women...or worse. 

In First Kisses and Second Chances, Rusty mutters "You didn't have to pay for my mother's funeral." If Courtney had what it takes to be a good wife, I think she would have said something like "I know it looks strange, but I spent so much time with her while my own mother was ill, I didn't even think twice..." Getting on her high horse about his ungracious tone, I think, is the sort of thing that gets Lady Bounti-Fools' fortunes spent on barflies.

But apart from that little mistake, which might cost Courtney dearly if she were real, this is a delightful story about people who deserve happiness and, during the time frame of the story, find it.